Patience.

With moving come lots of thoughts about time.
“Oh my gosh I can’t believe I am already leaving!”
“Oh my goodness I can’t believe I have been here this long!”

“What in the world will the NEXT few years bring?!”

“How long will I be at my next spot?”
“I will be 70 before I know it, won’t I?”
“How in the world can life go any faster than it already is, but people tell me it does!”
“Am I learning what I needed to learn in this season?”
“I don’t have much time left!”

 I hope you are all imagining me very frazzled, with my curly hair all askew and some type of fiery fear in my eyes. Because that is pretty much the case.

Or at least until I get a reality check and calm myself down.

Yes, life goes fast, and yes, I will be 70 next week, and maybe I am not learning everything that God wanted me to, but….alas…..God is patient. He will work what he wants to work in this next 70-year-week.

*take a deep breath*

*Sigh*

*Move on with my day*

This year I have been taking a book of the New Testament and reading pretty much the whole thing every day for a month. Mind you, I have stuck to the books that are shorter than 6 chapters, and mind you, I have really only gotten through a whole book in one day maybe 5 times. And it’s April. I’m batting like 75 right now. Out of a thousand.

But I like doing it this way. April has brought me to II Peter because March took me to I Peter.

(I believe in doing things in order.)
II Peter is rocking my world. It leaves me thinking about it all day long.
Because I have been thinking about moving and thinking about time, it was really applicable to me when I came to II Peter 3, verses 8-9. At first glance it seems a little out of place, but at second glance I think it is right where it needs to be.

Verse 8-9: But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

*End quote.

On a side note, people have used this to back up their thoughts that in Genesis 1 a “day” could have meant something different than 24 hours. “Because, after all,” they say, “A day is like a thousand years to the Lord.”

Um. No.

Sorry, Charlie. Scripture taken out of context can’t be used to back up your personal preference. That’s not how Bible interpretation works. God doesn’t exist in time, but Moses, who wrote Genesis, did.

 Ok, so God exists outside of time. Look at it this way: I make a lot of salads, but it doesn’t mean that I LIVE in salad. It means that it’s something I made. It’s the same with God. He exists apart from that which he made.

Hmmm…All that considered, isn’t it interesting that it says that “He is patient” with us?

Doesn’t patience have something to do with time? But God doesn’t exist in time. But he is patient.
You and I exist in time.
And yet we hate “being patient.” We humans have a complex towards waiting. We like to see results fast. Praying for someone’s salvation for 40 years seems like a long time. Too long. It’s not worth our patience, we think. We want the plan to go faster.

Well, let me ask you this:

What if 40 years to us is just the extent of patience God has to that person we are praying for? Like, God’s patience took 40 years?

Don’t we want to be in God’s plan? And don’t we want that person to come to repentance, no matter how long we pray?

 Back to the passage. The first verses talk about how God created the world, and the later verses talk about how he will destroy the world, and right there in the middle, are these two little verses that say history past as well as days to come, are nothing. Time is nothing to God. All this world is nothing. But what is something to God, is his plan. His plan for people; His plan for repentance.

Some of us long so much for Christ to come, for everything to be made right. We want it to get here soon. But what if his speeding things up meant that you and I didn’t get “finished”? Would we really be wanting the world to be right if the end found the hearts of you and me and our loved ones unrepentant? Are we ready for the consequences of God moving quickly with us hanging in the balance?

God is patient with us. He doesn’t have to be. Our life is nothing. It is here today, gone tomorrow. I am 20-something today and will be 70 tomorrow. He doesn’t have to pay attention to us. He doesn’t have to work out his plan in us. He could be more preoccupied with the earth, and how it came, and how it will go.

But he isn’t. His plans are for people. He is patient with US.

Patience is not something that exists only inside of time.

Patience is God doing his work.
He is not slow, as we understand slow. He is not wasting time.

And aren’t we glad that God is patient with us?

What if he wasn’t?

I think I would have spiritual whiplash. What if he tried to break you of every single bondage and misconception and lie you believed in one day? In the course of one hour?

I can hardly handle him using two years to get me over 3 issues, I can’t imagine if he tried to go any faster! I struggled for 10 years with something until just this last year when finally I didn’t anymore. 10 years! One issue!
Looking back, I see all along that 10 years was how long I needed. It doesn’t matter to God that even if I live to be 100 he took 10% of my life to get me over one issue. He is working his plan in me.

God doesn’t care about time, he is unfolding his plan. And it will unfold; and it will go the way he wants it to.

The beginning of the world and the end of the world seem like they should be much bigger consequence to God than my little heart. But it’s not. All of that coming and going stuff is really just the frame he has set up to do his work on people in.

 Isn’t that the most incredible thing? The fact that we are his plan—our repentance is his plan?! And all of the world will disappear when God’s plan is done. When he no longer shows patience.

God, the One who exists outside of time- the One who has patience outside of time-has patience towards people who are here today, gone tomorrow—people with very little time.

What a big God. And what a plan it must be.